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“Don’t defend him. He’s a grown man.”
“And I’m a grown woman. This isn’t like before. I’m completely aware of his baggage.”
“Are you?”
He studied her as if she couldn’t possibly know Harrison that well and the familiar pinch of loneliness returned. Her brother probably knew details about the Montgomerys she did not.
“I know he’s not staying here.” She didn’t need all the details to realize Harrison’s father had been a toxic person in his children’s lives and his death had stirred some confusing and difficult emotions. “Trauma doesn’t have a shelf life. Ward’s death doesn’t make the pain go away.”
“He told you?” Giovanni shot her a skeptical look then glanced at his wife as she casually paced on the other side of the glass doors while nibbling from a bag of chips, obviously giving them some time to talk.
Mariella shook her head, wishing Harrison trusted her enough to share his deepest secrets, but he didn’t communicate that way. “He didn’t have to.”
Mariella didn’t need words or stories to piece together the source of Harrison’s pent-up rage. She’d been to enough of his games to guess which injuries came from the field and which did not. She also knew, beneath that rigid exterior hid a very vulnerable and compassionate heart, which explained why he was so guarded.
But she trusted him on a level others couldn’t possibly understand. “Harrison would never hurt me. Not intentionally.”
“Sometimes unintentional wounds are the hardest to heal, Mariella. Just be careful.”
That night, with Giovanni at Erin’s, her mother still at the hospital, and Nona at Aunt Maureen’s, the house was eerily silent. Mariella was exhausted, but too wired to sleep.
She showered and made herself some chamomile tea, but her brain wouldn’t shut off long enough for her to rest. After tossing and turning for hours and trying to find something boring enough to sleep through on TV, she gave up and pulled out her phone.
But social media didn’t fix her craving. She wanted meaningful human conversation, something real that made her feel connected.
She couldn’t call him. It was late and she already decided it wasn’t right for her to lean on him for that sort of comfort.
Clicking off her phone, she shoved it aside. She needed sleep. Just a few hours, then she could go back to the hospital and sit with her mom.
The weight of the silent house pressed down on her, constricting her lungs and tuning up every little follicle in her ears until she could hear the click of the clock in the den and the soft sputter of air pushing through the vents in the hall. When her phone buzzed, it might as well have been a gong by her ear.
She sprang upward and knocked the phone off the covers then scrambled to grab it off the floor, nearly falling completely out of bed in an inelegant swan dive. She expected it to be her mother with an update about her father or a request that she grab something for her while at the house, but it wasn’t.
The sight of Harrison’s text sank in like a drug finds the vein of an addict. Instant relief and comfort blanketed her.
* * *
How’s it going?
* * *
She smiled at the mere sight of his name on her phone.
* * *
Okay. I’m home now. Too exhausted to sleep. How was the sale?
* * *
So much for helping him with the store. Her only two days off were gone, and if the sale went well, he’d be gone before she had another one.
* * *
Want some company?
* * *
She glanced at her old pajama pants and mismatched socks. Her hair was still wet from the shower. Her mind volleyed between healthy and indulgent options, wondering if there was any real harm in seeing him if his presence might calm her down. She needed sleep—
The doorbell rang before she could decide what to tell him.
Thinking it was another cousin dropping off food or picking up something for her mother, she went to let them in. But as she opened the door, Harrison’s dark blue stare shot through her, and her foolish heart sighed in absolute relief.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
She lifted the phone in her hand. “I was just about to text you back.”
He shook a box of Fruity Pebbles. “I remembered you had a thing for Fred Flintstone. Hungry?”
She loved that cereal and hadn’t had it in years. “Are you offering to cook for me?”
A quart of milk hung off the index finger of his other hand. “You provide the dishes and I’ll do the rest.”
He followed her inside, and she pulled down two bowls and grabbed spoons. He unpackaged the cereal and poured. The sweet smell of sugar brought her back in time.
He drizzled some milk over the colorful flakes. “How’s your dad?”
“The same but improving. They said it’ll be a few days before he’s back to himself.” Curling her legs underneath of her knees, she lifted her spoon. “Cheers.”
